This year as we celebrate the 20 Year Anniversary... I am thinking about where it all started. I stumbled into an old VHS tape with footage of "The Ugliest Witch Contest" in front of the drug store. PRICELESS!!!

Left to right: Ginger Wilkinson (parade founder), Martha Wilkinson Boetcher (sister-in-law), and Russell Wilkinson (husband) at the first parade.

My mother Ginger was taken from us on her 65th birthday in 2012, but she left a lifetime of such fun and wonderful memories behind. She was known for her child-like spirit and imagination and will be remembered by many as "The Parade Lady." She was forever creating new parades and events and finding ways to give back to her community, that she loved so dearly!

I often laugh when I hear people refer to the Halloween parade as "the adult parade" because I can hear my mother correcting me in my head.... "Erin it is not an adult parade it is a paradeforadults, there is a completely different connotation" and she was a stickler on that point. Ha! Ha!

Mom wanted to create an environment that would encourage adults to let their creativity run wild... and boy did she ever! With so many artists in the area, her little parade became the perfect incubator for an explosion of Halloween fun!

Erin K. Wilkinson

My mother Ginger Wilkinson founded the Douglas Halloween Parade for Adults. I took over managing it after she passed away in 2012. Each year I dedicate the parade to her loving memory. She loved being whimsical and giving back to the community!